


Clarity without Mirrors

by iulia_linnea



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-25
Updated: 2009-06-25
Packaged: 2017-10-03 23:37:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iulia_linnea/pseuds/iulia_linnea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A ten-year-old Luna teaches herself to scry (and banishes a "demon" in the process).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clarity without Mirrors

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted under the sub-pseudonyms of ouphe (Dreamwidth) and an_ouphe (LiveJournal). Cross-posted to [aunt_meg](http://aunt-meg.dreamwidth.org/1894.html). Thank you, Kay, for beta'ing.

Daftwicke's book, _Divination Detailed_, was quite clear: salt, a pendulum, and a mirror were required scrying components. Luna found this an odd combination of items, but she hadn't written the book, and she supposed that Daftwicke must know what he was about if he'd found a publisher for his theories. She found the Never-Ending Phial of salt in the kitchen and tucked it into the basket that she carried, and then climbed up to her room to retrieve her amethyst pendulum. That just left the mirror. It had been her mother's, and Luna felt a bit funny going into the attic after it, but if she wanted an answer, she knew that she'd have to be brave. Taking a deep breath, she quietly climbed the ladder to the attic and pulled herself up into the small room. Dust was all she could sense within it, at least, at first.

Once her eyes adjusted to the dim light, it didn't take her long to find the mirror, a circular piece of dark glass with rounded edges into which Luna avoided gazing. Looking inward, that's what Daftwicke suggested, but Luna detected an inconsistency in the instruction: One had to stare into the mirror, into the void; that wasn't so much looking inward as looking into a realm outside of one's own, and Luna was nervous about what she might find there should she to do that. She knew that whatever she found, it wouldn't be her mother. Wrapping the mirror with some cheese cloth for safety's sake, Luna climbed down the attic ladder and slipped the mirror into her basket before creeping out into the dawn morning and then running for her clearing in the woods.

She didn't believe that she was truly being naughty by working a spell on her own; her father had taught her loads of useful ones, but she'd never attempted any formal Divination. What if she couldn't follow Daftwicke's instructions in quite the right way? What if something went wrong with the mirror? Her pendulum was a proper magical object; might something very bad happen if it interacted strangely with the other components?

Preparing her scrying space, Luna hoped not. The clearing wasn't hers alone, and she didn't want to harm any of the creatures who lived there. She didn't want to harm herself, either, or invite any lurking presences on the other side of the mirror to come through it should her spell go awry. Yet, her question was of such importance that she had to try and find its answer. She remembered very well how her mother had never given up in the face of a vexing experiment.

Of course, her mother's last one hadn't gone as expected, had it? Just over a year later, Luna could still see the expression of surprise on her mother's face as . . . .

"No, I won't think about that now. Not now," Luna whispered, looking at the blanket.

The green and tan checked cloth was smoothed down over the leaves, its edges held in place by stones. In its centre, she'd placed the mirror atop the closed lid of her basket. She'd made a salt ring around the basket, and another around the mirror, which she'd also bisected with a line of salt. Thus divided, one side would be for "yes," and one, for "no." Daftwicke hadn't been particularly clear about which side was which, unhelpfully noting that "this will become clear to the scryer." It was possible that when she began Hogwarts, such details would amongst her lessons, but for now, all Luna could do was hope that clarity reached her once she asked about the unexplained presence.

Unexplained presences were usually ghosts, but Luna's mother hadn't ever appeared to her. If she'd remained behind as a spectre, Luna knew that her mother wouldn't have hidden herself from her. What she didn't know, however, was what the presence was, and why she felt it so strongly on some days and in some places only to feel a distinct lack of it on other days and in those same places. She had to know the answer before she left for school because if it was her mother's presence, well, she'd need to explain why she was leaving her, wouldn't she?

Taking up the pendulum and allowing it to dangle over the centre of the mirror from its chain, Luna asked, "Is Mummy still with me?"

The pendulum began to swing, but not in the right direction. The crystal was swinging forwards and backwards. That was wrong, but perhaps she simply wasn't concentrating hard enough.

Is Mummy really still here? she thought, willing her arm to remain steady.

The pendulum continued to swing, but increasingly, it swung closer to her. Luna knit her brows and bit her lower lip, willing the pendulum to cease its incorrect movement. It didn't stop, and soon, the crystal was swinging outside the mirror's salt circle and tapping her in the chest.

"That's not what you're supposed to do!" she exclaimed, glaring into the mirror.

It startled her to see herself looking so angry, but even though Luna was only ten-years-old, she felt as though she should be able to scry on her own. She tried again, and again, heedlessly staring into the black disc before her until she saw colours swirling within it, colours whose brightness was mottled by her frustrated tears. She blinked them back and tried not to feel distracted, but the pendulum continued to swing in the wrong way, each tap against her chest more irritating than the last.

Suddenly unable to stand it any longer, she shouted, "Is Mummy still with me?" and leaned more closely towards the mirror than was wise.

A face, not her own, stared back at her, and Luna was so surprised by it that she allowed the pendulum's chain to slip from her grasp.

_Crack!_

Luna rose and leapt back, her eyes never leaving the shards of dark mirror. To break a normal one meant seven years bad luck; to break a scrying mirror, well, who knew how bad that could be—and had anything escaped it? Daftwicke's held nothing in its pages of demons, but the face that Luna had seen hadn't been a witch's. Something had been waiting on the far side of the mirror in hope of entering into her side; her father had taught her enough to know that some "somethings" were like that.

There was no time for questions; she had to act to save her clearing. Jerking up one end of the blanket, Luna threw herself down and began to dig a hole. This, she lined thickly with salt before throwing in every last shard of glass and pouring salt over the remains of the mirror. Covering that with dirt, she tamped down her demon trap by jumping upon it, and then hid it with a pile of leaves. For good measure, she salted the leaves, as well, hoping that she'd done enough to prevent any lurking demonical presence from inserting itself into her plane of existence.

It was all she could do, and once done, she was left breathless, frightened, and answerless, but she still had her pendulum; she could see the rising morning light that was filtering down through the branches reflecting off its facets. When she knelt to grasp it, the crystal felt warm in her hand. What was more, the presence, her presence, seemed to curl strongly around her.

This was when Luna realised that her pendulum had actually been her mother's. Her father hadn't said as much when he'd given it to her, but she knew it was true.

She also felt silly because her father had told her that it was properly magical. Somehow, it had interfered with her scrying, and probably because the pendulum was the only Divinatory tool that she'd needed all along.

On impulse, she held the crystal aloft by its chain and thought of her mother, and the pendulum swung towards her heart. "Look inward, that's what Daftwicke said, isn't it?"

How foolish of her to have ignored that instruction. Of course her mother was still with her; Luna carried her in her heart, in her memories and emotions, and when she thought of her mother, that was when her mother's presence was closest. For so long, it had been difficult to think of her at all because it only made her cry, but when her father had given her the pendulum . . . .

The pendulum! It had to be a focus; in the same way as a scrying mirror was a portal between planes, the crystal of the pendulum drew spectral energy into itself!

"So when I wear it and think of Mummy, she comes to me. And that means that she is still with me, sort of. At least, she's somewhere not far, waiting for me."

Luna laughed, incredibly pleased to have found the answer on her own, no matter that it had taken her so much time to do it—and in spite of her near-meeting with a demon. That was a sobering thought, really, and not one that she wished to continue to contemplate, so she gathered up her things and placed the pendulum's chain around her neck, adjusting the crystal to rest against her heart.

Her mother was still with her, was still waiting for her. She'd see her again, some day. That was a reason to be happy.

Of course, if she wanted to make her father happy, she realised that she'd best return the Never-Ending Phial to the kitchen. Her father's mood, which had been a continuous variation of sadness since her mother's death, was never improved by the lack of salt for his eggs.

Luna wondered if she should tell her father about the pendulum's true power but thought the better of it; he'd given it to her, after all, and made a point of telling her that it was a magical object. It stood to reason that he'd intended for her to discover its particular sort of magic for herself. Clever, that's what her father was, and certainly more so than Daftwicke.

It was a distressing realisation for Luna, who loved books and their authors almost as much as she did her parents, that Daftwicke probably shouldn't have been published at all. The only point about Divination that he'd got right was the looking inward part, and Luna felt that she would have come to learn this on her own in time—and without having almost released a demon into the world.

Before she left for Hogwarts, Luna decided that it was up to her to set everyone straight on the matter of scrying. If she suggested the subject as a good topic for a _Quibbler_ article, she expected that her father would find it of enough interest to discuss it with her, and to be in her father's presence and have him concentrate on her instead of on her mother's absence would be a fine thing, indeed.


End file.
